Patrick Comerford
Next Sunday, 24 May 2020, is the Seventh Sunday of Easter, the Sunday after Ascension Day.
The readings in the Revised Common Lectionary, as adapted for use in the Church of Ireland, are:
The Readings: Acts 1: 6-14 or Ezekiel 39: 21-29; Psalm 68: 1-10, 32-35; I Peter 4: 12-14, 5: 6-11; John 17: 1-11.
There is a link to the readings HERE, apart from the alternative reading in the Book of Ezekiel; there is a link to that alternative reading HERE.
Introducing the readings:
This Sunday is a strange ‘in-between’ time in the calendar of the Church. On the Thursday before (21 May 2020), we celebrate the Day of the Ascension. On the following Sunday (31 May 2020), we celebrate the Day of Pentecost.
In the meantime, we are in what we might call ‘in-between’ time.
It is still the season of Easter, which lasts for 50 days from Easter Day until the Day of Pentecost. But this morning we are still in the Easter season, in that ‘in-between’ time, these ten days between the Day of Ascension and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the Church on the Day of Pentecost.
Acts 1: 6-14:
In the reading from the Acts of the Apostle on the preceding Thursday (Acts 1: 1-11) and on this Sunday (Acts 1: 6-14), two angels in white robes ask the disciples after the Ascension why they are standing around looking up into heaven. In the Gospel account of the Ascension (Luke 24: 44-53), they return to ‘Jerusalem with great joy,’ and seem to spend the following days in the Temple.
As the story unfolds in the Acts of the Apostles, the disciples, as well as the Virgin Mary and other women (see verse 14), spend their time in prayer, choosing a successor to Judas, as we are told in this Sunday’s first reading (Acts 1: 6-14).
Ten days after the Ascension, they are going to be filled with Holy Spirit, who comes as a gift not only to the 12 but to all who are gathered with them, including the Virgin Mary and the other women, the brothers of Jesus (verse 14), and other followers in Jerusalem – in all, about 120 people (see verse 15).
But during these ten days, they and we are in that ‘in-between’ time, the ten days between the Ascension and Pentecost. Their faith persists, but the promise has not yet been fulfilled.
They wait in hope. But until that promise is fulfilled they are, you might say, transfixed, believing without doing, unable to move from Jerusalem out into the wider word.
Is this the same upper room where they had gathered after the Crucifixion, behind locked doors, filled with fear, until the Risen Christ arrives and, as Saint John’s Gospel tells us, says to them: ‘Peace be with you … Peace be with you … Receive the Holy Spirit … forgive’ (see John 20: 19-23)?
Fear can transfix, can immobilise us. It leaves us without peace, without the ability to forgive, without the power to move out into, to engage with the wider world out there.
Sometimes, our own fears leave us without peace, unwilling to forgive, unwilling to move out into the wider world.
Fear paralyses, it leaves us without peace, and as we protect ourselves against what we most fear, we decide to define those we are unwilling to forgive so that we can protect ourselves against the unknown, so that we can blame someone for the wrong for which we know we are not guilty.
The Risen Christ tells us: ‘I am with you always, to the end of the age’ (Matthew 28: 20). But too often we are caught between Ascension Day and Pentecost, waiting but not sure that the kingdom is to come, frightened in the terror and the pain of the present moment.
Feeling powerless and fearful and not knowing what to do combine to make a deadly cocktail that not only immobilises us but robs us of hope.
But, hopefully, we can also see ourselves in the nurses, the doctors, the police, the emergency responders, who respond immediately, without considering how they put themselves in further danger … the supermarket staff, the delivery drivers, the people in communities who deliver shopping, the postal workers who check on the elderly and the vulnerable, the gardai who take smiles and verbal abuse with equal stoicism.
We can see ourselves in them. And hopefully we can see the face of God in them.
And this is our Easter hope and faith.
This is the hope that we will never lose our capacity as Christians to live with the Risen Christ, listening to his desire that we should be not afraid, and that we should love one another.
This is the hope we wait for between the glory of the Ascension and the empowering gifts the Holy Spirit gives us and promises us at Pentecost.
Ezekiel 39: 21-29:
This alternative first reading speaks of God’s glory in ways that reflect some of the images in the Psalm (Psalm 68: 1-10, 32-35), recalling how God led the people being out of captivity in the past, and how, in his mercy, God will do so again in the future.
It also reflects some of the thoughts in Christ’s High Priestly Prayer in the Gospel reading (John 17: 1-11), looking forward to God’s people being sanctified, or their holiness being seen, in the sight of all.
God will not hide his face from his people, but will pour out his Spirit on them.
Psalm 68: 1-10, 32-35:
Psalm 68 is sometimes difficult to interpret. This psalm consists of snippets, each a few verses long, commemorating how God has looked after the people. For the early church, this psalm foretold the ascension of Christ.
It may have accompanied a liturgy or drama in the Temple depicting the escape of the people from Egypt (verse 7), through their presence before God on Mount Sinai (verses 8, 16) to the promised land (verse 9-10) and to Jerusalem, where God dwells (verse 17). However, this movement is difficult to see in the selection of verses in this reading.
The opening verse echoes Moses’ words whenever the Ark was moved (see Numbers 10: 35).
The language in verse 2, ‘as wax melts,’ is the language of God’s presence. In Canaanite culture, the storm god, Baal, ‘rides upon the clouds’ (verse 4), but both here and in verse it is the Lord God who does his. This is God who is the defender of orphans and widows, the needy and the prisoners (verses 5-6).
I Peter 4: 12-14; 5: 6-11:
We have come to the end of a five-week cycle of readings from I Peter, written to a group of new believers who are being oppressed for their new-found faith, or even being persecuted.
In these closing verses, the writer urges his readers to accept their ordeals and trials as sharing in the sufferings of Christ. This is preparation for union with Christ when he comes again (verse 13). In these sufferings, they are blessed and filled with gift of the Spirit verse 14).
The verses missing from this reading include:
● one of only three uses of the word Christian in the New Testament (I Peter 4: 16; see also Acts 11: 26; Acts 26: 28);
● an exhortation to church leaders to tend ‘the flock of God’ and to be good examples to them (I Peter 5: 1-5);
● well-known references to Christ as the shepherd (I Peter 5: 2-4);
● the citation of Septuagint versions of two well-known proverbs: ‘If it is hard for the righteous to be saved what will become of the ungodly and the sinners’ (I Peter 4: 18; see Proverbs 11: 31 LXX); ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble’ (I Peter 5: 5; see Proverbs 3: 34, LXX).
The author concludes by reminding us we must be prepared to humble yourselves before God. We should discipline ourselves and keep alert, for ‘like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.’ Others also suffer as we do, but our suffering will be brief, for God has called you to his eternal glory in Christ.
John 17: 1-11:
This Gospel reading follows Christ’s ‘Farewell Discourse’ at the Last Supper (John 14: 1 to 16: 33), Christ has just ended his instructions to his disciples, which conclude with the advice, ‘In the world you face persecution But take courage; I have conquered the world!’ (John 16: 33).
We now read from his prayer to the Father (John 17: 1-26), in which he summarises the significance of his life as the time for his glory – his Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension – has arrived.
This prayer is often referred to as the High Priestly Prayer, as it includes many of the elements of prayer a priest offers when a sacrifice is about to be made: glorification (verses 3-5, 25), remembrance of God’s work (verses 2, 6-8, 22, 23), intercession on behalf of others (verses 9, 11, 15, 20, 21, 24), and a declaration of the offering itself (verses 1, 5).
In the Orthodox Church, this passage is also read on the Seventh Sunday of Easter, a day remembering the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in the year 325. That council condemned the heresy of Arianism that taught that the Son of God was created by the Father and that there was a time when the Son of God did not exist. Christ’s words here bear witness to his divinity and to his filial relationship with the Father.
Verses 1-2: the Father gives this glory to the Son, and this adds to the Father’s glory because of the authority the Father has given to the Son over all people, with the promise of eternal life.
Verse 3: this eternal life is knowing the Father and Christ, who has been sent by the Father.
Verses 4-5: Christ glorifies the Father by finishing the work he has been given, and he is being restored to glory in the Father’s presence, a glory Christ had in God’s presence before the world existed.
Verse 6: Christ has made God’s name known in the world, and those who have heard him and have been obedient to the word of God.
Verses 7-8: the disciples now know that the Father is the source of all that the Christ has been given, they know that he has been sent from the Father, and that the Father sent him into the world.
Verse 9: Christ’s petitions are on behalf of his followers.
Verse 10: Those who follow Christ are committed to God’s care.
Verse 11: Looking forward to the time after his departure – after his Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension – Christ now asks the Father to protect the disciples in the world, and prays that they may have a unity that reflects the unity of the Father and the Son … ‘that they may be one, as we are one.’
John 17: 1-11 (NRSVA):
1 After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. 5 So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.
6 ‘I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; 8 for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. 11 And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.’
Liturgical Resources:
Liturgical Colour: White (Easter, Year A)
The Greeting (from Easter Day until Pentecost):
Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Penitential Kyries:
Lord God,
you raised your Son from the dead.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord Jesus,
through you we are more than conquerors.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Holy Spirit,
you help us in our weakness.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
The Collect of the Day:
O God the King of Glory,
you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ
with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven:
Mercifully give us faith to know
that, as he promised,
he abides with us on earth to the end of time;
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Collect of the Word:
O God,
whose Son, Jesus, prayed for his disciples,
and sent them into the world
to proclaim the coming of your kingdom:
by your Holy Spirit,
hold the Church in unity,
and keep it faithful to your word,
so that, breaking bread together,
we may be one with Christ in faith and love and service,
now and for ever.
Introduction to the Peace:
The risen Christ came and stood among his disciples and said,
Peace be with you.
Then were they glad when they saw the Lord. (John 20: 19, 20).
Preface:
Above all we praise you
for the glorious resurrection of your Son
Jesus Christ our Lord,
the true paschal lamb who was sacrificed for us;
by dying he destroyed our death;
by rising he restored our life:
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Eternal Giver of love and power,
your Son Jesus Christ has sent us into all the world
to preach the gospel of his kingdom.
Confirm us in this mission,
and help us to live the good news we proclaim;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Blessing:
The God of peace,
who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus
that great shepherd of the sheep,
through the blood of the eternal covenant,
make you perfect in every good work to do his will,
working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight:
or:
God the Father,
by whose glory Christ was raised from the dead,
raise you up to walk with him in the newness of his risen life:
Dismissal (from Easter Day to Pentecost):
Go in the peace of the Risen Christ. Alleluia! Alleluia!
Thanks be to God. Alleluia! Alleluia!
Suggested Hymns:
Acts 1: 6-14:
398, Alleluia! sing to Jesus
259, Christ triumphant, ever reigning
696, God of mercy, God of grace
266, Hail the day that sees him rise
267, Hail the risen Lord, ascended
268, Hail, thou once-despised Jesus!
300, Holy Spirit, truth divine
211, Immortal love for ever full
275, Look, ye saints, the sight is glorious
431, Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendour
104, O for a thousand tongues to sing
306, O Spirit of the living God
307, Our great Redeemer, as he breathed
109, Sing alleluia to the Lord
285, The head that once was crowned with thorns
Ezekiel 39: 21-29:
457, Pour out thy Spirit from on high
Psalm 68: 1-10, 32-35:
494, Beauty for brokenness
13, God moves in a mysterious way
368, Sing of the Lord’s goodness
509, Your kingdom come, O God!
I Peter 4: 12-14; 5: 6-11:
566, Fight the good fight with all thy might!
418, Here, O my Lord, I see thee face to face
635, Lord, be my guardian and my guide
618, Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy
599, ‘Take up thy cross’, the Saviour said
627, What a friend we have in Jesus
John 17: 1-11:
518, Bind us together, Lord
86, Christ is the King! O friends, rejoice
456, Lord, you give the great commission
438, O thou, who at thy Eucharist didst pray
526, Risen Lord, whose name we cherish
443, Sent forth by God’s blessing, our true faith confessing
527, Son of God, eternal Saviour
285, The head that once was crowned with thorns
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.
The hymn suggestions are provided in Sing to the Word (2000), edited by Bishop Edward Darling. The hymn numbers refer to the Church of Ireland’s Church Hymnal (5th edition, Oxford: OUP, 2000).
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